grief is love with nowhere to go

I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that I think I’m bad at being sad.

While others always seem to find purpose and direction in sadness I find my tendency is just get lost in it. It’s probably why Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is my favorite movie because I have often wanted to forget rather than mourn, delete rather than deal and block rather than feel. If there was a pill I could take that could stop me from feeling grief, I’d pop it.

It’s not just me. Grief is an event no one wishes they ever have to prepare for but that no one can really escape. Humans are hardwired to seek and maintain connection, which makes our brains uniquely unskilled at handling inevitable loss.

Whether it’s the loss of a person, a relationship, a job, or a home, the sting of losing any connection, is enormously painful. An injury to the heart is as painful and lasting as a wound to any other part of the body. In fact, brain scans reveal that showing people who are going through a breakup, pictures of their ex, will stimulate the same part of the brain that’s activated when they’re physically injured. There’s even evidence, not surprisingly, that painkillers or ibuprofen can help soothe a broken heart.

And given the state of the world in the last few years, there’s been more loss than most of us can fathom. The sheer volume of loss has made us exceptionally numb. But avoiding grief doesn’t lessen the pain, it just delays its process.

Earlier this year, Andrew Garfield referred to grief as “unexpressed love” when asked about the recent passing of his mother on the Colbert Show. Garfield’s phrase resonated with me and a bunch of other people. It reminded me of Jamie Anderson who said that grief is love with nowhere to go. “What is grief, if not love persevering?” is another quote that’s travelled far and wide after it appeared in the show “WandaVision.”

Adam Grant @AdamMGrant

Many people see grief as pain. They avoid it, suppress it, or race to process it so they can expel it from their lives. Here’s a beautiful alternative: grief is unexpressed love. Holding onto it is a way of staying close to the people we’ve lost.

So if grief is inevitable, is there any way to make it easier? My friend Rebecca Soffer believes it’s possible. After suddenly losing her mother and then her father only a few years later, she was shocked by how unprepared she felt to handle it. She wanted a guidebook to help her through how to handle loss in the modern age, so she went out and wrote it and build an entire community around it called Modern Loss. Her new book The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience came out this week and I got to attend her beautiful book launch at the Marlene Meyerson JCC in New York City.

Rebecca adores our community and has agreed to answer some questions on grief and loss for you. I highly recommend you get your own copy or buy one for a friend who is going through it. I can attest that it pairs beautifully with ice cream :)

Rebecca Soffer (right) crushing her book launch in New York City (photo by the inimitable Rachel Sklar)

Liz Plank: We’ve just hit a heartbreaking milestone of one million Americans lost to Covid-19, how do you think this collective grief has impacted us?

Rebecca Soffer: I think that at this point, 24-plus months into this devastating pandemic, we are all very well aware of what grief feels like. We have not only lost people, and for every Covid death apparently there are nine people who are directly affected by that loss, so we're talking at least – at least! – nine million people in the U.S. alone who are grieving a pandemic-related death. But we have also lost our ability to access some of our "normal times" coping mechanisms even just in the form of brunch with friends or that favorite class at the gym, lost parts of our identities (or taken on additional roles that we didn't anticipate, such as simultaneous at-home professional and caregiver all at once), burned out, grieved over societal issues like gun violence and racist acts and freedom over our bodies and the fact that the political realm has become so divisive that it's hard to see what comes next. It's been a really hard time for most of us, to live in nearly constant trauma mode. The grief is real and worth acknowledging.

Liz Plank: A lot of people compared grief to a battle to be won but you compare it to…crabs? Please explain why crabs are a better metaphor for grief!

Rebecca Soffer: Yes, I know it sounds kind of weird! But here's the thing: I'll take a crab metaphor any day over one suggesting that if you fight hard enough, you just might vanquish the aggressor (be it illness or any real form of adversity). I honestly can't stand how we promote this idea of furiously powering through tough things – especially ones that will permanently alter your life and need to be viewed as a marathon instead of a sprint. 

There is no winning or losing in tough times. There's just doing. Especially when it comes to loss, which has no real set roadmap. That's why I suggest thinking about crabs, which, for the most part, have one job: To hold on tight to their bearings, bending and shifting in dry sand or at the bottom of the ocean, digging in and letting go as needed in order to maintain their balance. Many of them can also move in any direction as needed – forward, backward, and sometimes even sideways. They pivot when they need to. 

I could go on and on about the crab metaphor thing, but you get the picture. As I write in the book, crabs are resilient. They get shit done. And they don't care if they look wonky while doing it; they just do it.

Liz Plank: What is the number one mistake  people make when they are grieving?

Rebecca Soffer: I don't love describing things as mistakes when it comes to grief because to me, the only real mistake is if you do anything that hurts you or anyone else in the process. But beyond that, I believe the biggest disservice you can do is to  convince yourself that your grief isn't valid, that it isn't as deserved as someone else's whose loss looks "worse," that what you're going through isn't worthy of acknowledgement by others, worthy of examining and respecting. If it feels like grief to you, it is. And believe me, it's very hard to heal without acknowledgement. You need to figure out how you can get that. 

I think that death makes us inherently uncomfortable and that’s why so many people don’t show up in a helpful way when someone they love or work with is grieving. I also think we like to support people when we can fix things but with death there’s nothing to fix.

Yes, we certainly don't love remembering that our time on Earth is limited (and that we have very little control over how long that time may be). And I think that also we unconsciously feel that if we don't engage with topics that feel scary and uncontrollable, that somehow we can prevent those things from happening to us and people we are about. In short, we still have a way to go with regard to getting better at normalizing this topic in our culture, which is why I'm so grateful that you're someone who has always embraced and promoted it.

Liz Plank: What is the best way to show up for someone who is grieving?

Rebecca Soffer: It's true that you can't "fix" grief. But you can do things for people that help make their lives a little easier during a really vulnerable time. If you're a neighbor, think about what they might need at their house or apartment – someone to check the mail? Mow the lawn? Help with the garden so that it doesn't go haywire when the person just can't even? If you're a colleague, can you be a helpful point person for them, check in a couple times a week to invite them for a workday break/walk around the block/coffee, or share some upcoming tough days with the rest of your team so that they don't feel so stressed about doing it themselves? 

And if you're a good friend, you know that person. Put important days on your calendar when they might be feeling extra awful (birthdays, deathiversaries, Hallmark holidays) and even if you're not available on the actual day, suggest a plan together the day beforehand.   

The most important thing to remember: There is no one perfect thing to say, and that's totally fine. Sometimes the most perfect thing to say is that you know there isn't one, but that you care, you're here, and you're willing to listen at any time. (And keep telling them that.)

Liz Plank: What is the worst thing you’ve ever heard someone do when someone was grieving and what is the best thing you’ve ever heard someone do for someone grieving?

Rebecca Soffer: I've heard a lot of really crappy things myself and through other people: "Was she wearing a seat belt?", "You can always get pregnant again," "It's been three months, maybe it's time to move on," "At least you weren't so close," "They're in a better place," and my always least favorite, "Everything happens for a reason."

The best thing anyone ever said to me in the earliest days of my grief was in an email my friend Justin from Columbia Journalism School sent to me the morning after my mom's death. He had learned about it and really loved her from the times they'd met (he'd come over for Thanksgiving and out to dinner with us at graduation). The subject line was simply: Bullshit, and the message was something attesting to what total bullshit it was that my mom had died, and how furious and shocked he was. I really needed someone to feel those big feelings with me, and I went back to that message a lot over the following several months.

Liz Plank: What is the last thing that gave you hope? 

Rebecca Soffer: My five year old little boy, Elliot. I was away for work for an entire week earlier this month (I've been doing a lot of traveling lately and that stuff is hard with small kids at home) and was feeling pretty dejected about the state of the world when I came back. I was depressed and furious and fearful about the Roe v. Wade news, underwhelmed and saddened by all the hatred in our culture and the fact that people are screaming at each other over something as simple as mask wearing, down over the seemingly interminable state of this pandemic and the continued extreme uncertainty in our daily lives. The night I got home, he asked me to get into bed with him to snuggle together. And then he broke out into the widest smile, covered me in kisses and told me how much he missed me, and spent ten minutes telling me in full, nearly excruciating detail about a fort he helped build in the woods behind his school. I just kind of gave in to the moment and delighted in it with him. And realizing that I was feeling delight during such a time, and from this adorable creature who will hopefully be a force of good in the world, gave me some hope.

You can buy Rebecca’s book everywhere.